VOCATIONAL FACILITIES: THE INFLUENCE OF TEACHER INVOLVEMENT IN PLANNING AND OTHER KEY ELEMENTS IN THE DESIGN PROCESS UPON SUBSEQUENT TEACHER SATISFACTION AS DETERMINED BY POST OCCUPANCY EVALUATIO

Purpose and Objectives. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of teacher involvement in planning vocational facilities and other key elements in the design process upon subsequent teacher satisfaction as determined by post occupancy evaluation of these facilities. To achieve this purpose four operational objectives were established. (1) Determine the degree to which vocational teachers are currently satisfied with their vocational facilities. (2) Determine the degree to which teacher involvement, as perceived by vocational teachers, was present in the planning of these vocational facilities. (3) Determine if a relationship exists between the degree of teacher satisfaction and their relative input into the planning of these vocational facilities. (4) Identify the determining elements that affected the final design outcome of these vocational facilities utilizing educator and architectural information sources and determine the relationship of these elements to subsequent teacher satisfaction.;Research Procedure. The sample for this descriptive ex post facto field study consisted of vocational teachers, administrators, and architects employed in or associated with 10 school districts having vocational facilities housing programs with specified breadth and diversity which were no older than two years nor younger than six months. All schools were within approximately 200 miles of Houston, Texas. These school districts were identified by Vocational Education Area Consultants employed by the Texas Education Agency. The sample included 120 vocational teachers, 10 school administrators and eight architects.;The instrumentation consisted of questionnaires designed and field tested by the researcher. There were three separate instruments specifically targeted for the respective three groups of respondents.;The data gathering process for the educators was in person on site by the researcher. The eight architects were contacted initially by letter and followed up by telephone.;Descriptive and correlational statistics were the primary statistical techniques utilized to quantify and report the data.;In order to organize and present the results of this rather complex data base, a graphic profiling system was developed.;Findings. The major findings related to this study were: (1) The 10 schools formed two significantly different (.005) groups in terms of facility satisfaction--the five schools above and the five schools below the sample mean. (2) The 10 school percentage point range was 68.45% to 80.64% with a sample mean of 75.29%. This equated to 5.27 on the semantic differential scale, which was a positive evaluation overall. (3) There were differences in mean scores for each of the 10 subordinate facility areas contained within the vocational facility as a whole. The teachers were least satisfied with provisions for the handicapped. (4) About half of the teachers of the 10-school sample reported that they had participated in the planning process. (5) Teachers reported a planning involvement mean score of 3.36 (on a 1-5 point scale). (6) There was a significant (.01) relationship between teacher participation in planning and vocational facility satisfaction. (7) While some of the internal ranking fluctuated, the two distinct groups formed by "higher satisfaction" and "lower satisfaction" were not changed when new rankings were formed by deletions of furnishings, equipment, maintenance, and provisions for the handicapped from the process profile. (8) The only elements from the process profile showing positivie significant (.05) correlations with facility satisfaction were "school input levels for teacher participation in planning" and "architectural utilization of teachers' input." (9) Other elements showing positive significant (.05) correlations with facility satisfaction were "laboratory facility satisfaction," "size adequacy," "storage adequacy," and "good color.".